François Durvye (left), far-right leader Jordan Bardella's new economic adviser, at a meeting with the MEDEF, France's largest employers' federation, in Paris, on April 20, 2026. BASTIEN OHIER/HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
Pierre-Edouard Stérin has not appeared in Paris since December 2025, when he gave an interview to The New York Times, which featured radical remarks ("I am even further to the right than the far right on immigration") that stunned employees at Otium, the family office that manages Stérin's assets. "The Billionaire Funding France's Far Right," read the piece's headline. Yet Stérin's political funding has since dried up, and this has raised a question: Is the entrepreneur, who lives in Belgium as a tax exile, still a billionaire?
Stérin, who, as recently as 2024, was one of France's biggest business angels, has since fallen out of favor in business circles, as his political radicalism has left a mark. "He's facing a wall of debt in 2027," said a source familiar with Otium's finances. His fall from grace has saddened several of his former associates, all of whom blamed François Durvye, the former manager of Stérin's family office, as jointly responsible for the situation. Today, Durvye serves as the new economic adviser to Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party. Durvye officially began serving the RN on April 1 and, since then, he has become the central figure in the far-right party's efforts to win over France's business community.
You have 91.52% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.